Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-07-15

Stalking All q Desperate Chance-A
| Delighted Flock.
| There is a workingwomen's hotel in opera
ton in New York city, which was started by
the capital Of shop girls, which is run by shop
! girls and which accommodates shop girls. 1t
/ keeps roof over the heads Of some seventy
! inmates, and it never asks the workingwoman
to barter her independence for home. A
sturdy, brown haired American girl of % or
, Whereabouts has been the head and front of
| the undertaking from the start, and the other
| day she gave me an outline Of the scheme.
: 'There are three of u.s." she said, sand we
came to the city together a couple of years
ago. Father left US $500 apiece and beyond
that we each had two hands and nothing
more. We had no trade; nobody at home
! had ever thought of our needing one, and we
! were unused to work of any kind We drifted
into the shops, of course Every girl with one
/ good gown and who knows how to comb her
| hair does that in the city today
II earned S. week and the others had s.
| week at the start and we lived like some
thousands more. That means top floor bed
/ ROOM gas jet, a tin pail, bakers bread and
I tea. We had to have car fare, we had to have
! clothes and the bread and butter had to shift
for themselves"
Just when she began to think Of other pos
| sibilities, this energetic piece Of feminine hui
mainly told me she did not know. A scheme
| had been in her mind almost from the start.
| II was sure, as soon as the idea came to me, "
| she said, that if / could once find the right
sort of house. in the right part Of the city,
and manage the housekeeping as clever4y and
| carefully as they do back in the country,
| could contrive a decent sort Of home living
| for my sisters, for myself and for a good
many women beside, at rates that shop girls
can afford to pay
@The difficulty was about risking our little
| capital. 1t didn't earn much for US in the saw
| ings bank, but it was all we had, you know.
and we had never touched a penny Of it, no
| matter how shabby we went or how hungry
we grew l was behind the handkerchief
counter and one Of my sisters sold stockings
| and the other buttons in one OF the biggest OF
| the New York stores There were zoe
| women about the establishment, and we
| talked the matter up mornings and nights
| with every one that we knew. There was a
| literary society that met every week and We
! brought it up there, and in two or three OF
| the girls social clubs beside. There were
| plenty of girls who lived at home with their
parents, but we found fifty or more who
| jumped at the chance we offered them and
| were continually urging US to go ahead with
the scheme. Finally we began househunting,
not all sure whether we peant to take place,
or even if we found one to suit us or not We
We're staggered by the city rents a matter
| of course, and more than once gave up the
whole plan in despair. We felt like a trio OF
| gamblers, and not at all like the confident
| business women we had been at the outset,
when we finally paid down the first months
rent for this house of ours just four months
| ago. We had staked our all on desperate
| chance, and the longer we looked at it the
more certain appeared the prospect Of our
| loss.
at was a woman of whom we hired the
place, and she put the figures as low as she
could afford, and promised us consideration
in any difficulty so long as there seemed a
chance OF our final success. There wasn't
money enough left to furnish very extern
sively, but we got together the needfuls for
the kitchen and the dining room and put up
|. as MAN. beds as our last lingering dollars
would buy. The girls who had promised to
board with us were eager to come, and most
of them had women's knickknacks of one sort
or another-tables or chairs or pictures or
bits of fancy work-that frightened up the
bare place wonderfully and made it look
from the first week almost like a home. 1t
was because it felt like home that we did
not fail. There were fifty of us the day the
house opened, and the dining room and the
big sitting room and the hallway opened run
ming over with flock of delighted children.
To have a house to themselves where they
could do as they pleased was a luxury that
went to their heads. They ran up stairs and
down stairs and the homelier nook or corner
was the better they liked it. 1t was n camp
ing out frolic, and picnics were rare enough
with them ALL They laughed because l for
got towels in ordering the linen, and they
laughed when the milkman went by without
leaving the milk. They sat up till past mid
night sewing the long seams of the sheets.
They unpacked their trunks and settled the
furniture and hustled about in that first week
of confusion, in the firm conviction that the
whole experiment was the most delightful of
Jokes that had ever exploded in their prosaic
lives.
Nothing discouraged them and nothing
daunted them. No matter what went wrong
they were determined to be pleased and to
find in every mishap only the material for a
Jest | put the board as low Us | dared after
had calculated the rent and the coal, the gas
and the table bills. 1 left the store, of course,
and my sisters did the same. The three of US
undertook to manage the house, and once
things got III running order we found no great
difficulty with the schme. l interviewed the
grocer and the butcher and the fish dealer,
and have been experimenting from the start
with simple meals of wholesome variety and
material. Seventy boarders was the utmost
number we had room to accommodate, and
seventy boarders were on our list before the
first three weeks had gone by. When the first
month of our experiment was over we had
money in hand for a second months rent and
moro in our pockets than If we had stayed i'll
the store. After looking at our four weeks
balance sheet put aside the last thought of
disaster to my plan. 1t would work; it was
working. and patience and good health could
not help carrying it forward without fail"
The building in which this cheerful para
graph of the city's history is being written IS
adouble brick house, Astounding in multi
plicity Of small rooms, in quiet by street. 1t
IS not over furnished, but it never groans at
a sewing machine. nor frownS at canary
bird nor tangleS woman in rules and regu-
lations till she struggles for fresh air. 1t has
a reading room and germ of library, and
il supplies home comforts and home rest at q
charge not exceeding from s. TO $50 Per
week. The latest project now under discus
sion is to put the working girls enterprise on
a more permanent and substantial basis by
making of the whole institution a co-operat-
i've scheme. Low priced shares of a few dol
lars each will be bought by the women out Of
their savings, and if it seems expetiient fund
Will be established for the purchase of the
house.-New York Mail and Express